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We Stopped HRL!!!!!

It can be easy to despair when you are campaigning so hard on an issue for so long. Sometimes you can feel like the government just isn’t listening to you and that all your efforts are a bit pointless… but not today!

We have been campaigning for over a year against the proposal by company HRL to build a dirty brown coal power station in Victoria.

And today Martin Ferguson, the Federal Minister for Energy and Resources, announced that the government would be scrapping its $100 million grant to the company because it failed to meet the grant requirements.

HRL wanted to build the first new coal fired power station in Victoria in almost 20 years, and Quit Coal, along with many other concerned groups and individuals, have been urging the government to withdraw its funding.

With our friends from Greenpeace, Environment Victoria, Yarra Climate Action Now, Beyond Zero Emissions, Darebin Climate Action Now (DCAN), Doctors for the Environment Victoria, LIVE, The Environment Defenders Office and many others, we have held rallies, done banner drops, doorknocked, collected petitions, lobbied and pushed hard for the government to make the right decision.

This is a huge win. Government promises are often forgotten or quietly fade into the background, UNLESS we hold them to account. Together, our pressure on the Government made HRL too big an issue to ignore, and today they have finally heard that we don’t want new coal in Victoria!

While HRL has not yet announced that they are cancelling the project, they have no private funding and without the government grant, it’s hard to see how the project can progress.

Although the company claims that the plant would use ‘clean coal’, we all know that there is no such thing.

The technology used would only have made the plant as ‘clean’ as a black coal, which is still among the highest polluting energy sources in the world.

Congratulations and thank you to everyone who worked hard and sacrificed their time, money and energy to stop this project from happening.

It’s so exciting to know that the dedication and passion of regular people can protect our community from the money-making schemes of big energy companies.

Thankyou to everyone who supported Quit Coal along the way, this is a victory for all of Victoria. We’re looking forward to campaigning on other coal and coal seam gas projects with you all, and winning them too!